


Run Away with Me

by bactaqueen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: cap 3 spoilers, possibly just standing alone, possibly the beginning of something, referenced death penalty, t'challa's bodyguard now has a name since i couldn't find an official one for her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7121794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/pseuds/bactaqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharon put her job and her life on the line to help Steve. Natasha's betrayal earned her a favor from Wakanda's king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Away with Me

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction. Recognizable characters belong to their respective owners. No profit is earned and no infringement is intended.
> 
> **Author's Note:** Nocwaka was chosen for Lady Move Or You Will Be Moved because [it's a Xhosa woman's name meaning “quietness.”](https://standiwe.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/xhosa-names-their-meanings/) She didn't have a lot to say, but she made quite an impression, and talewt and I ended up with headcanons that started there. This might be the beginning of something, it might stand alone, I'm not sure yet. I just know I was worried about Sharon and Natasha, and I liked this solution for them.

Sharon sipped her coffee as she waited on the corner for the light to change. She still hadn't gotten used to Berlin's chilly mornings, even in mid-May, so the warmth from the cup was welcome. From where she stood, she could see the crowd of international reporters and their camera crews camped on the sidewalks around the building JSOC was using. It seemed like a major security breach to Sharon, but she couldn't fault their curiosity.

It hadn't been a week since the Winter Soldier had broken out of containment in this same facility, crashed a helicopter, and disappeared.

Sharon didn't know where he—or Steve—had gone. News out of New York overnight was there had been a break-in at the Raft, and Wilson, Lang, Barton, and Maximoff were all missing.

(None, she had noted, of the actual criminals had been released. Just the rogue Avengers. She could guess what Steve had been up to.)

“You're not really going back to work this morning, are you?”

The low drawl beside her made her shoulders tense. Sharon didn't look over. She just sipped her coffee.

“Need a place to hide out?”

“Are you kidding me? My hotel has an aquarium big enough for the Hulk to go skinny dipping in. I'm here for _you_.”

Sharon frowned, then forced her expression back into something more neutral. “I made my choice.” Her career was over if the investigators found out what she'd done. It wouldn't matter that she'd handed over sensitive information to Captain America. All that would matter was that she'd broken the law and betrayed her country.

The penalty for treason was still death.

With Steve and Bucky gone, people in charge wanted accountability, and someone had figured out that Steve couldn't have moved as fast as he did without inside information. They'd eliminated intercepted communications as his source. The fact that several low-level employees had incriminating personal photos of themselves on their phones featuring Cap's and Falcon's costumes had tripped them up; Sharon knew that as soon as they figured out she'd been the one to take them, it was all over.

The light changed, and the small crowd surged forward. Across the street, Sharon meant to go left; Natasha's persistent, unmovable presence at her elbow nudged her right, past the bank at the end of the block, and down a narrow side street used mostly for deliveries and parking.

"Don't be noble. Noble is just going to get you killed. I've got a safehouse.”

“Is that why you're staying in a Radisson?”

“I'm waiting for my ride. Might as well be comfortable.”

Sharon finally stopped walking and turned to Natasha. They were far enough from the traffic cameras at the intersection, and deep enough in the shadows between the buildings to go unnoticed. Not, Sharon decided, that anyone would even be able to identify Natasha. Her hair was shorter and darker, she wore sunglasses big enough to cover most of her face, and her lips were an obnoxious shade of red that made Sharon miss her Aunt Peggy with a sharp, sudden pang.

“What have you heard?”

“Nothing,” Natasha said definitively, “but I don't have to hear anything to know you're in trouble.”

Sharon frowned at her. “Why are you here?” They hadn't been unfriendly at SHIELD, but...

Natasha pursed her lips and was silent for a long moment. She said, finally, “I made a mistake. Siding with Stark, signing the Accords. Seems like saving you is the least I can do, since someone else sprang my BFF from the floating prison.”

Sharon couldn't help the smile.

Natasha shrugged, nonchalance even Sharon knew was feigned. “Besides, my contact is sending me a private jet. There's plenty of room.” She smirked. “Want to run away with me?”

A private jet could be anybody, Sharon thought, but she had her suspicions. She took another drink of her coffee, holding it on her tongue while she considered Natasha's offer.

If she started running now, she wondered, would she ever get to stop?

Would it really matter? She could do plenty of good without an official government ID.

She said, “Do I have time to pack?”

“Only the important stuff. Leave the vibrator, I don't think you'll need it.”

Sharon gave her a dirty look.

Natasha smiled. It even looked real.

“Have you got a car?”

“Do I look like an amateur?” Natasha slipped her hand out of her pocket and pressed a button on the fob she held.

The car behind Sharon beeped. She turned fast, but there was only the sleek black phallic thing parked next to them, engine suddenly purring. Natasha slipped between her car and the dumpy Citroen parked in front, and paused with her hand on the driver's door handle.

Natasha said, “I hope you got two pinkie donuts.”

Sharon squared her shoulders and yanked over the passenger door. “I always get two.”

 

***

 

Sharon didn't need much; some clothes, some personal items, and the package from her aunt's lawyer fit into a single suitcase. Natasha ducked into the bathroom, and Sharon went into the kitchen to put her phone, tablet, and computer into the oven. There was an external hard drive in her suitcase, but she didn't want to risk being tracked with the rest of her stuff. She'd closed the door and was watching through the oven door when she heard a crash of broken glass from her bedroom.

She burst into the room, gun drawn, only to find Natasha flipping her made mattress off the bed, toppling the nightstand and sending the lamp to the hardwood floor. The small flat TV off her bureau was on the floor in front of the wardrobe, screen shattered.

“What are you doing?”

“Misdirection,” Natasha said sagely. She pulled a knife from inside a sleeve on her jacket and slashed through sheets and mattress.

Sharon put her gun away and made a small sound of protest. “I liked those sheets.”

“I'll get you nicer ones, sweetheart.”

Sharon made a face at her.

Natasha waved toward the apartment beyond the bedroom. “Go make a mess in the living room. I know how hard that is for you ex-Army—”

Sharon spun and put her hands up. “I got it, I got it.”

First, she yanked the fire alarms out of the ceiling. Smoke was starting to spill out around the oven door, and she didn't want the fire department showing up before they left. While Natasha finished trashing the bedroom and the bathroom and the little office off the bedroom, Sharon took care of the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

“What are we looking for?” she called to Natasha at one point.

“Proof Steve was here,” Natasha called back.

Sharon's face went hot. “Sam and Steve were never here.” She had offered, but--

Natasha came out of the bedroom, sliding the knife back into its sheath beneath the sleeve of her jacket. “Oh, I know that.”

Sharon looked at her, probably a little too wide-eyed for her actual innocence.

“No missing paint.” At Sharon's confusion, she elaborated, “The shield rubs the paint off the walls, and he'd have brought it.”

Natasha Romanoff's attention to detail was still impressive. Sharon shook her head and turned to go back into the kitchen. “How do you even _know_ that?” She was good. She was very good. But it probably would never have crossed her mind to check for evidence of where Steve left the shield.

“Paint's missing at shield-height in every room he liked at the compound,” Natasha said, following her. “How's your stuff? Cooked yet?”

Sharon bent over to peer into the oven. Everything was a melted, bubbling mess on the baking sheet. “They're going to have a very hard time pulling anything off of any of those.”

“Is there anything to pull off?”

“Just nudes of you from that Japan mission a few years ago,” Sharon deadpanned.

“Oh, well, at least it'll be interesting for them.” Natasha crossed the kitchen to grab Sharon's suitcase. “My contact just sent me a message. Our plane is ready.”

Sharon followed Natasha into the hallway and pulled her door shut behind her. “Are you going to tell me who your contact is?” She locked the door, and wrenched the key just right so it would break off in the lock.

If only she'd known that particular flaw would come in handy, she wouldn't have been so pissed about it the last two times it happened.

Natasha had both eyebrows raised at her when she turned around.

It was Sharon's turn to just shrug.

Natasha smiled at her like she'd passed a test. “I think it'll be pretty obvious once we get to the airport.”

 

***

 

It was, indeed, very obvious as soon as Natasha pulled the car into the private hangar at the edge of the airfield. The imposing bald woman standing at the top of the stairs in the plane's hatch would have given it away even if the armed security at the hangar door and the flag hung on the back metal wall hadn't.

Sharon put her hand on the door handle and looked over at Natasha. “You're kidding.”

Natasha smiled, serene and smug. “King T'Challa was very gracious.”

Sharon frowned at her. “His bodyguard sure doesn't look happy.”

“As I understand it, she never does.” Natasha pushed her door open and started out of the car. “Let's go. It's impolite to keep a king waiting.”

“I guess so.”

Wakanda. The word kept bouncing around in her brain as she got out of the car and got her bag out of the backseat. Natasha got her luggage out of the trunk, and as they closed the door and the trunk, Sharon suddenly wondered what would happen to the car when they left.

Natasha seemed to be able to read her mind when she looked up.

“It's a rental,” she said.

Whatever Sharon might have replied was preempted by the imposing woman's voice echoing through the hangar. “We will keep our schedule, with or without you.”

Natasha started toward her. “Nocwaka, thank you so much for collecting us.”

“I have come to ask questions the king will not.” Nocwaka stepped back, into the plane. “We have already filed our flight plan. Board, or leave.”

Sharon looked at Natasha; this didn't seem welcoming, or even welcomed, and she was starting to wonder... But Natasha didn't look at her, just kept the smile on her face and climbed the stairs into the plane.

Sharon had met with the king's bodyguard at the UN, in the aftermath of the bombing. Nocwaka hadn't even been visibly shaken by the loss of her charge. She had asked where the new king was, explained that she had not been in the room because the prince had been there, and hadn't answered any further questions.

Not that anyone had had any for her. The investigation had been pretty open and shut.

Sharon had been impressed with her then. She was wary now.

Natasha boarded, and Sharon followed. She was doing this. She was running. There was no going back. As she passed Nocwaka, she nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet, Agent Carter. There are no guarantees.”

Natasha took a seat at one end of the long couch in the cabin. She tucked her small suitcase under it, and grinned big at Sharon.

“I think we're in for an interrogation, Agent Carter.”

Sharon tucked her own suitcase between the end of the couch and the chair beside it, facing away from it. She sat down heavily on the couch next to Natasha.

“The next time you ask me to run away with you,” Sharon said, “I get to pick where we're going.”

Natasha bumped her shoulder. “It'll be fun. You'll see.”

Together, they faced Nocwaka, who was lowering herself gracefully into one of the chairs at the table across from the couch. Nocwaka produced two folders from the pocket on the wall just above the desk, and a pen from another pocket.

“Ready when you are, Adored One.” Natasha smiled.

Nocwaka stared stonily at her. She twisted off the cap of the pen and opened the top folder. “Tell me about Sao Paulo.”

Sharon's stomach sank.

 


End file.
